Family

My daughter tripped yesterday while running down the driveway; she scraped up her knee really badly, ripped open a big flap of skin on her foot, and scraped her elbows and hip.

I figured we'd be heading to the after-hours clinic, and I was right. They referred us directly to the emergency room, saying they weren't confident in stitching up the flap because it wasn't straight, and they didn't want to check for tendon damage.

I don't know why we even have an after-hours clinic.

The emergency room was empty, so we were admitted immediately. It took an hour or so to get to us, though. Since it was too painful to stand on, they x-rayed the knee and foot.

Nothing. In fact, when the doctor came to look at it, she asked, "Did they see something I'm not seeing?" We should've cleaned it out ourselves; nothing was done that we couldn't have done just as well at home.

Except the x-ray. It is nice to know that there are no internal injuries.

I must be doing something right: my eldest daughter went to a sleepover at a friend's house. They wanted to play Sims 3, but the computer wasn't working.

We had discussed this earlier, so she new it didn't have the appropriate drivers. She and her friend took the computer apart to figure out what model of motherboard they were dealing with, then put it back together, downloaded the appropriate drivers, and got everything running.

Alright, it took them 3 hours. But that's not bad for a first time. And they treated a difficult problem with perseverance and initiative.

Alpha Geek approves. Well done, Grasshopper!

That's right, twentieth!

An overgenerous donation from a friend who appreciated my Serendipity work made a cozy celebration possible. We went to Houston's for dinner, where Eri had the best prime rib we've ever tasted. (Prime rib is traditional for our wedding celebrations.)

The evening was enchanted. Every light turned green as we approached it. We found parking spaces in crowded lots. We found a "Modern Bridal Shop Elite Fighting Academy" sign (thankfully, they weren't training brides that way 20 years ago.)

Rather than something mundane like a movie, we went to S.A.K. Comedy Lab. I've always enjoyed improv, and these guys did a really good job, while keeping it PG-13. Along the way, we got to see some interesting advertising games going on outside, and the gallery downstairs.

Finally, we went to the Cheesecake Factory for a Mississippi Mud Pie (also a wedding celebration tradition). While their peanut butter cheesecake was delicious, their mud pie was direly deficient. It's supposed to be coffee and chocolate ice cream, with a layer of fudge on top, with an oreo cracker crust. Theirs was a chocolate cake, topped with a scoop of coffee and a scoop of vanilla, with whipped cream, a cherry, and fudge on the side. Anybody know where you can get a good mud pie in Orlando?

We didn't want to go to bed, but all good things must end eventually. We had a great time, and it's a night we won't soon forget.

Since we're already getting up at 5:15 AM to get Tatiana to school, I figured we may as well watch the Orionid meteor shower.

Although I woke her up a little late, Tatiana was ready in record time. I explained that the Orionids are the remains of Halley's Comet's last visit in 1986; even now there's still enough debris to make a meteor shower. I tried to keep expectations realistic, pointing out that the frequency was only expected to be twelve an hour (or one every five minutes), and that our terrible light pollution would probably keep us from seeing even that many. But Tatiana was still excited, since she's never seen a shooting star before.

We saw 5 meteors in 15 minutes! Two of them we shared, and one of them was really spectacular. We also saw three satellites (we think).

Melissa woke up early (for her) at 6:30 AM, so I told her, too. We only saw one meteor, which isn't surprising since it was getting so close to dawn and things weren't really dark at all. But her first shooting star was also a great one!

Not a bad morning for fatherhood. I shared their first shooting star with two of my daughters!

My two eldest kids just spent a weekend with their aunt in Miami. She's much cooler than we are, of course. They had a great time, and even brought us back some souvenirs.

Naturally we had to make sure the youngest had a good time, too. We went to DisneyQuest. (When the eldest kids found out, they were royally pissed. Melissa actually sat on the bed and not-talked to Eri... until she fell asleep.)

Unfortunately, Kayla didn't enjoy DisneyQuest as much as we had hoped. She would rather have gone swimming. In fairness, she did have a lot of fun. She just didn't think it lived up to its hype. She wasn't all that impressed with the VR games, she didn't like pinball, and she couldn't go on the Buzz Lightyear ride. She was much happier when we went walking in the rain, and when she got to play at the Lego store. Of course, she hated getting pulled out of the Lego store when I pulled up with the ride home.

On the other hand, I loved it! Lots of classic games, mostly in good working order. Plenty of modern games, also in good condition. Skee-ball, air hockey, pinball machines... I was very happy. I hated the virtual reality games: they made me sick. But I actually got a partner to play Karate Champ with! And they had a Tux Racer arcade machine!

We tried to make it up to Kayla with a steak dinner. Yesterday evening, she told me she had a great time at DisneyQuest. I guess time heals all wounds.

It's nice to have the bigger kids back, though. The house was kinda lonely without 'em.